Dietary guidelines in Australia

Abstract

Dietary guidelines in Australia are now an integral part of our National Nutrition Policy. While the health and nutrition problems facing Australia may not be unique, our relatively small population, our diverse cultural heritage, and our geography provide us with a public health nutrition challenge. For more than a century Australia has been a leader in the provision of community-based prevention services that provided support for infant and child nutrition. In the 1930s the commonwealth government commenced the first of a series of nutrition advisory committees, of which the best known has been the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Nutrition Committee (l). It was this committee that developed the first national dietary guidelines (2) which were formally endorsed by the NHMRC in 1982.